This chapter turns to Freud’s work “Totem and Taboo” and shows that his undeveloped lines of thinking about the earliest manifestation of conscience (i.e., in totem morality) identify a protective, adaptive function, which clinical work by practitioners, working after his time, has proven to be the case. In “Totem and Taboo”—a study of anthropological accounts of primeval societies—Freud documents the way in which these societies related to the world around them in terms of the life-giving and life-threatening forces of nature. The taboos were embodied in clearly defined restrictions and rituals regarding certain activities, such as the husbandry of certain animals and/or the growing, gathering, and eating of certain plants; also around such issues as the handling of corpses, sexual intercourse, and childbirth. Since the original totems and taboos concerned food and warmth, it follows that it is social systems that (initially) optimise the chances of survival.